


Place Your Bets

by hexmaniacchoco



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Body Horror, Canon Compliant, Case Fic, Gen, Haunted Houses, Horror, Hunter Castiel, Mild Gore, Swearing, Team Free Will, Team Free Will Big Bang 2017, Thunderstorms, oh hey look a new tag I can use, tfwbigbang2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 02:09:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12098388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hexmaniacchoco/pseuds/hexmaniacchoco
Summary: Sam, Dean, and Cas stop at an inn in a small, mountainside town, where they hear about a local haunted house. Its previous owner died under strange circumstances, and so the rumor in the town is that it’s his ghost haunting the place. After learning that some attempts at renovation made by two realtors resulted in the death of one and the disappearance of the other, they take the case. It doesn't hurt that there's also bet in town that no one can stay a full night in the house and there's a cash prize.





	Place Your Bets

  
  
  
  
The Impala pulled up to a weathered looking inn just as it started to rain. Sam, Dean, and Cas hurried inside as the rain sought out a determined beat. An older man with a short beard was at the front desk, reading a fraying and wrinkled paperback. He looked up at the three of them.  
  
“They said there was gonna be a storm today. Guess it’s here,” he said, putting down his book.  
  
“Yeah, guess so,” Sam replied.  
  
“You guys got any rooms?” Dean asked, hoping the answer was “Yes we do” since the next motel was another hour and a half away.  
  
“‘Fraid it’s just the one,” the man answered. “Of course, you three’re welcome to it. There’s a king size in there and an old fold-out couch.”  
  
Outside, the rain picked up more, hammering against the windows. Dean looked over his shoulder at the downpour, and then exchanged a brief look with Sam and Cas. They both just shrugged back.  
  
The man at the counter also shrugged. “If you’re looking for something else, the only other thing close enough to here is the Smith place on the edge of town, about a 15 minute drive into the mountains. I wouldn’t recommend it though,” he chuckled.  
  
“Why’s that?” Sam asked with interest.  
  
“I’d say I’m guessin’ you folks aren’t from around here, but the town’s so small it ain’t a guess,” the man laughed. He continued before they could add anything, “It’s an old house that no one’s lived in for… well, at least some decades now.”  
  
He leaned forward conspiratorially, and added, “It’s supposed to be haunted. There’ve always been weird stories about the place, but just noises and sights and all that. Then one day--about a year ago or so--some people came in and tried to fix it up to sell it. They didn’t listen, calling it the house settling. But whatever’s in that house didn’t want them touching it and killed them, and ever since people have been too afraid to go up there.”  
  
Sam raised his eyebrows. “Oh. Well, thanks,” he said, finally smiling at the guy and glancing at the name tag stuck above his shirt pocket and as wrinkled as the cover of his book. “...Frank.”  
  
Frank nodded cordially in return.  
  
“How were they killed?” Cas asked, stepping forward a bit.  
  
“One of ‘em was pushed down the basement stairs and the other just went missing. She hasn’t been found since,” Frank answered.  
  
“What kinds of uh, ‘noises and sights and all that’ did you mean?” Dean inquired.  
  
“Oh just the usual haunted house stuff. Eerie lights in rooms, doors closing, maybe a scream or two,” he replied. He cocked an eyebrow and added, “You seem pretty interested in the place.”  
  
Thunder rumbled lowly outside. Dean smiled at that. “Oh--well, you know… it’s uh, the little things, local stories and legends, that make these trips all the better,” he said.  
  
“Then maybe you’d be interested in the bet some of the others in town have going,” Frank offered.  
  
“Well that depends,” Dean replied. “What’s the bet?”  
  
“It’s more of a fun thing for people to try for thrills now, but there’s a bet in town that no one can stay a full night in that house,” Frank told him.  
  
“Is there a reward for this bet?” Dean asked. He was already interested in the possible case before, but the opportunity to make some cash from it sounded even better.  
  
Frank gave a hearty laugh and answered. “Two hundred dollars goes to anyone that can spend the night there. I sure wouldn’t try it but you three look like you have more of a sense of adventure than I got.” He held up the key to the room. “You boys stayin’ then or are you already looking to check out the house I told you about?”  
  
Sam looked out the window. It was dark outside, but a short flash of lightning illuminated enough so that he could see the sheets of rain thundering down. The wind howled, battering around the surrounding trees for good measure.  
  
“I think we’ll stay here first,” he answered on behalf of them, smiling politely as he took the key and pulled out his wallet.  
  
“That’ll be fifty dollars, and the room’s at the end of the hall to your right and up a floor, number 42,” Frank said.  
  
“I have one more question about the house, if I may,” Cas started, and when Frank nodded at him, continued, “Who were the previous residents?”  
  
The man stroked his chin and pondered it for a moment before replying, “That I don’t know much about, I’m sorry to say. The man who lived there wasn’t much loved in town, some said he had a wicked streak, or he was some devil worshipper or a witch or something. He disappeared one day is what I heard, and a few days later his body was found in pieces throughout the woods, so they say it’s his ghost haunting his house.”  
  
“No one went looking for him?” Sam asked.  
  
“Like I said, he wasn’t much liked by the people in town. My guess is that the only reason they knew he disappeared in the first place was because he hadn’t come in to town for supplies. And then his body must have been found by accident,” the man answered.  
  
“Well, thank you for the info,” Sam said.  
  
“Anytime,” the man replied. “You three have a good night now. I’m gonna’ lock up and call it in myself.”  
  
“You too,” Sam said in return.  
  
The man smiled at them, and after picking up his book, left the area behind the counter and headed down a small hall to the side. Sam, Dean, and Cas headed toward their room down the hall to the right.  


* * *

  
The next morning, Dean and Cas walked into the room holding some coffees and a small bag of pastries. Sam already had his laptop open and was looking up information about the apparent case they had stumbled onto. Dean dropped the bag of food down next to Sam on the small table he was set up at and pulled out a seat. Cas placed a cup of coffee next to Sam, getting a quick thanks in reply, and then took a seat across from him.  
  
“Find anything?” Dean asked, reaching into the bag and pulling out a plastic container with a slice of pie in it.  
  
“Actually yeah-- I found this website linked from the town’s website--”  
  
“This town has a website?” Dean asked skeptically. He dug around the bag for a plastic fork.  
  
“Apparently,” Sam continued, “Anyway, there was a link to a website someone made about the weird stories surrounding the house. Pretty convenient.” He pulled the bag over to him and looked inside it.  
  
Dean made a pained face, which wasn’t exactly the reaction either Sam or Cas had expected.  
  
“Aww don’t tell me this is another tulpa or something and those Ghostfacer assholes are involved again,” Dean complained.  
  
“I agree it would be preferable if they weren’t involved,” Cas stated, sipping his own coffee.  
  
Sam laughed a little despite a similarly pained expression coming over his face at the memory. “I did consider that, actually, but this sounds like a legit thing,” he said.  
  
“What did you find?” Cas asked.  
  
Sam pulled up a simple looking website with a solid grey background and black, Times New Roman font. At the top of the page was an old black-and-white photo of a small but tidy looking two-story house in a small forest clearing with a dirt road leading away from it into the foreground of the photo. The headline of the website simply read “Smith Place Haunting”.  
  
“So the guy at the check-in counter was right about all the sightings and reports being your typical haunted house stuff. People would hang around the house after it was abandoned, before the couple realtors showed up, and all they really experienced was the usual: a temperature drop across the house, weird noises, lights appearing in the windows at night with supposedly no one there--that kind of stuff,” Sam began explaining. He paused and took a bite out of a croissant.  
  
“Wait, a temp drop across the whole house?” Dean asked. “Were they being followed around or something?”  
  
“Dunno’. Probably,” Sam answered through a mouthful of pastry.  
  
“Either that, or there are multiple spirits haunting this place,” Cas offered.  
  
“Could be that too,” Sam replied. He took a drink of coffee. “It spooked people, but that was about it. It wasn’t until after the realtors came and tried to renovate the building that it started getting dangerous. According to the story here, they tried blaming the activity on the local people playing pranks to scare them. The townspeople denied it, of course, and the realtors carried on. A few days went by and no one heard from them, so a group went over to the house to see if they were alright, and that’s when they found the body of one, a Mr. Olikson, and recorded the disappearance of the other, a Ms. Scarpelli.”  
  
“Makes sense,” Dean said, “A ghost casually haunting a place, things start getting changed and fixed up, and it doesn’t like it, so gets violent.”  
  
“I take it the man on the front desk was also correct about the nature of the death they discovered,” Cas said.  
  
“Yep,” Sam answered.  
  
“Ok, so what about the guy who used to live there?” Dean asked. “They say anything about that?”  
  
“Enough,” Sam said, skimming over the paragraph at the top of the page. “He wasn’t an outcast--at first, but he did live in the mountains outside of town. It’s kinda vague, but he kept to himself and didn’t like visitors showing up. And then one day while he was away, some people broke in. They found a small stash of weapons, what they called ingredients for witchcraft, and some satanic markings under a rug-- _and_ , check this out.”  
  
He turned his laptop so that Dean and Cas could see the image he was pointing at.  
  
“A devil’s trap,” Dean noted.  
  
“So he was a hunter,” Cas supplied.  
  
“Looks like it,” Sam said, “and the people in town didn’t believe him, so he got the reputation of--.”  
  
“A ‘mean, devil worshipping witch or something’?” Dean interrupted, paraphrasing the man from before. “It’s a thankless job,” he muttered.  
  
Sam continued, “The rest is similar to what we heard. He hadn’t been in town for a few days, and no one went looking for him because no one liked him all that much. Then some person found a body part, which led to another body part, and when they found all the pieces of him, they tossed them into a bag and buried them out behind the house. The official report was he went crazy--or, crazi _er_ \--wandered into the woods, and got attacked by a bear or something.”  
  
Dean crumbled up the empty food bag and tossed it into a trash bin. “When is it ever a bear? Yogi’s too busy knocking over picnic baskets and beer coolers... So he got iced by some monster probably and became a vengeful spirit. Hey--what’d it say about the activity after the realtor got it?” he asked.  
  
Sam scrolled back down towards the bottom of the website. “Oh right. So in addition to the other stuff, if people stayed in the house too long the ghost started getting violent, pushing them around and throwing things at them…” he scrolled further down, “... hence the bet. Which you can ask about at the local bar.”  
  
Dean grinned. “Then I say we stop by there later and take them up on it. For now, let’s relax a bit and we’ll go check out the place after lunch while there’s still daylight.”  
  
“What are you hoping to find up there?” Cas asked Dean.  
  
“I don’t know, maybe old journals or something. Maybe he had info we could find useful later. Maybe he had something about what killed him. It’s probably worth a look.”.  
  
“Actually most of his possessions are up in some house functioning as a small museum, with other artifacts from the town’s history,” Sam stated, eyes still on the screen.  
  
“So we go check them out there, or, you know, ‘borrow’ them,” Dean countered.  
  
“It says they’re on display for the public to go through,” Sam said, “They have his journal, some of his weapons, and a few photos of his house. So yeah that might actually be a good idea.”  
  
“Then it’s settled,” Dean said.  


* * *

  
The town’s museum was a mid sized house at the end of the main street. Its walls were weathered white siding, the paint worn a little thin in some areas and the darker wood underneath showing through. On the front porch next to the door was a signboard that read “Museum of Local History, free admittance”. They walked inside, and a girl looking to be in her early twenties sitting at a small desk to the left of the door sat up when she saw them, placing her 3DS  down and picking up an informational pamphlet.  
  
“Enjoy your visit, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask,” she told them as she handed the pamphlet over.  
  
They each told her thanks and continued through the rooms, looking for the exhibit on the Smith Place. Most of the town’s history seemed to revolve around a silver mining past, some of them showcasing photos from when it had a larger and more bustling population. A few cases displayed examples of raw and refined silver, and a couple more had old mining tools resting in them.  
  
After a few minutes of perusing, they came across a smaller section with the same picture they saw of the Smith Place on the website. A table with a glass case over it sat underneath it. The case was filled with assorted knives, a machete, a few stakes with blood still dried on them, and a couple of old looking handguns and a shotgun. Scattered next to the guns were some silver bullets and some shotgun shells, probably loaded with salt. Next to the table was a smaller table with a thin, clear plastic covering stretched over it. Underneath the plastic were single sheets of paper with assorted warding and tracking spells. An old, somewhat worn book rested on top on the table. Cas picked it up and started flipping through it.  
  
“This appears to be his journal,” he commented.  
  
Sam and Dean moved closer to him so they could see the pages he was turning through as well. There was a slight echo carried in the room, so they kept their voices down.  
  
“What’s it sayin’ so far?” Dean asked from over his shoulder.  
  
“It mostly seems to detail his day-to-day activities, and a few hunts he’d gone on,” Cas replied, still looking through the book. “It doesn’t mention anything in particular so far.”  
  
“Maybe what we’re looking for is toward the end of the journal?” Sam suggested from his other shoulder. “I mean, if he was hunting something that killed him, or if whatever killed him was looking for revenge from a previous hunt, maybe it would be in the last entries.”  
  
Cas checked to see where the pages were blank, and then leafed a few pages before that. The three of them skimmed the writing, not missing that it seemed to be a little more hurried than the previous entries. Their faces scrunched in confusion as they read further into the journal, until they reached the last entry.  
  
Sam sighed. “Of course it cuts off mid-sentence,” he said, taking a step back.  
  
“Whatever was after him… it must have attacked as he was writing this,” Cas inferred.  
  
“Yeah, and all his previous entries make no damn sense,” Dean grumbled, “Half them of them weren’t even coherent thoughts!”  
  
“I don’t know,” Sam tried, “Maybe… maybe it was some form of ghost sickness or something. He did sound kinda terrified and desperate in his last entries. And back when you were infected, we wouldn’t have known what it was unless Bobby had told us.”  
  
Dean looked back through some of the entries again. “I don’t think so,” he replied. “With ghost sickness you have to be infected first, and it doesn’t sound like he met anyone that fits the bill here.”  
  
Sam shrugged, but didn’t say anything else.  
  
“We should probably go take a look around the area after all, as Dean first suggested,” Cas said.  
  
“Probably…” Sam agreed. “Just let me get some pictures of the entries on my phone really quick,” he added, digging into his pocket to pull his phone out. He snapped a few pictures of the last couple of pages.  
  
“Then after that, I say we hit that bar where they’re making the bets,” Dean said.  
  
They were on their way out, when the girl at the front desk spoke to them.  
  
“So I see you guys were interested in the exhibit on the town’s haunted house,” she pointed out.  
  
“We’re uh, kinda into that stuff, yeah,” Sam replied as they stopped at the door.    
  
“Do you happen to know more about it?” Cas asked her.  
  
She shook her head. “Not really. Just what we have on it here. But there’ve been more people from out of town coming and checking it out since what happened to those people trying to fix it, so I was starting to wonder if it was becoming famous or something.”  
  
“Oh,” Dean said, “Maybe it is; we don’t know. We just sorta stumbled onto it.”  
  
The girl frowned a little. “Oh… well, I guess that makes sense. Most of them said that too, and they didn’t really look much like the ghost-hunting type, you know?”  
  
“So uh, no lanky dudes with a button-up and dark hair or shorter red-heads wearing Buffy shirts, huh?” Dean asked.  
  
Her frown deepened as she put together who Dean meant from his description. “If you mean the Ghostfacers, then no, I guess we’re not well-known enough for that…”  
  
Dean turned around quickly and did a small fist pump, as she continued. “They were mostly a bunch of rugged looking guys, and some tougher looking women. I would have thought they’d be more interested in hiking the mountain than chasing ghosts, to be honest.”  
  
“O-oh, well… I guess you never know,” Sam said, doing a slightly better job at hiding his relief. “And hey-- you know, maybe they will show up to investigate it at some point. It sounds um… up their alley,” he added, trying to cheer her up a bit. Dean rolled his eyes.  
  
“I hope so,” she replied, smiling slightly at him.  
  
“We’re familiar with them, and I’m sure he’s right that this is a location they’d be interested in once they hear about it,” Cas added.  
  
She smiled more at that. “Well, have a good day, I guess,” she said, giving a small wave. They smiled and replied in kind, and continued out the door.  


* * *

  
As they drove up the mountain and into the woods surrounding the town, a light fog began to settle. It curled around trees and cast the woodland in a light grey haze.  
  
“Let’s hope this doesn’t thicken while we’re up here,” Dean commented.  
  
“Or when we’re on our way back up to the house later,” Sam added.  
  
“Or when we leave the house tomorrow,” Cas chimed in.  
  
They turned onto a smaller dirt road that they read lead to the house, and in another minute they were there. Dean pulled the Impala up to the front and shut off the engine.  
  
“Let’s have ourselves a look around,” Dean said, stepping out of the car.  
  
The house itself had become worn and somewhat run-down looking. The walls were a wood siding similar to that of the town museum, but what once must have been a pleasant cream color was dirtied and yellowed with age and lack of care. The paint was peeling in a few places, and where it peeled the wood looked rotted underneath. Darker streaks ran down the sides starting from the roof, from dirt or rain they couldn’t tell, and a large jagged crack ran up the left side. The lattice foundation had turned grey and was cracked in places. Though overgrown, the area surrounding it was almost picturesque in contrast. The surrounding trees seemed to almost perfectly frame the house. It made it more understandable why the realtors had insisted on restoring and developing the property.  
  
“I don’t recommend we enter the house until we come back later,” Cas cautioned, looking up at the old building.  
  
“I agree,” Dean said, walking over to the porch to peer into a window, taking care where he stepped, the rotting wood creaking under his weight. “We have to make the bet before we take out the spirit, else we don’t get our money.”  
  
Sam rolled his eyes. “You would be concerned with that, Dean,” he scoffed.  
  
“Nothing wrong with a little extra cash, Sammy,” Dean replied, not looking away. “And at least this is getting it fair and square. Mostly. We’re just taking care of it instead of having a sleepover with it.”  
  
“I’d think ridding the town of a now violent spirit would justify the acceptance of the reward money, Dean,” Cas said. He walked over to examine a smaller trail, almost fully covered by growth from surrounding shrubbery and bushes, that led away from the house.  
  
“What’d you find?” Sam asked, walking over to him.  
  
Dean looked over at them from where he stood on the porch by the window, and curious, eased himself down the steps and jogged over toward Cas and Sam. “What is it?” Dean asked as he got closer to them.  
  
“It’s a path leading away from the house,” Cas answered. “It may be a good idea to investigate.”  
  
Sam had his hand over his eyes as he peered through the surrounding trees. The fog was still light, but it almost completely whited out any visibility of the distance. “You think we’ll be able to see anything that might be hidden in this?”  
  
Cas shrugged and started down the trail, Dean following behind.  
  
“Alright then, guess we’ll try,” Sam mumbled, following them as well.  
  
They pushed through the narrow openings the surrounding plant life left them, but soon the trail began to clear up at the edges. After only a few minutes, the trail came to an end at a small clearing. They walked along the perimeter looking for any continuing path, but found nothing.  
  
“Do we head into the trees and hope the weather holds out?” Dean asked.  
  
“It probably wouldn’t be the first time we’ve done that (temporary wording for now, but it might work?),” Sam replied, walking a few feet out in front of his brother into the woods. “What do you think, Cas?” he asked, turning around again to face the clearing. “Cas?” he called, confusion and concern crossing his face as he saw that Cas wasn’t in the clearing any longer.  
  
Dean turned, a small panic rising in him as well at the look on his brother’s face, and when he saw that Cas wasn’t right behind them he jogged back into the clearing, looking around. Sam followed after him, the both of them calling out for Cas.  
  
“Shit!” Dean exclaimed, his heart racing. He tried calling out again.  
  
“Cas?!”  
  
“I’m over here!” Cas called out in reply, some distance away.  
  
Sam and Dean moved toward where they heard his voice coming from, and squinting through the trees and fog, were just able to make out his form.  
  
“Cas what the hell?!” Dean shouted as he and Sam made their way towards him. “A little heads-up next time would be nice!”  
  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize how far I’d gone,” Cas answered. “I noticed something peculiar about this direction and only planned to walk a few yards. 

“What’d you notice?” Sam asked him, looking past Cas toward where he had come from.  
  
Dean looked past him as well, squinting his eyes to try to make out anything that wasn’t a tree. Cas continued as he did.  
  
“There was a strange quiet--no birds or any other animal, just silence... While I was walking that way, I didn’t even see a squirrel,” he explained, glancing back in the direction he was talking about.  
  
“I don’t know. It could just be coincidence,” Sam said, shrugging, “but I guess we might as well check it out just in case.”  
  
Dean shrugged as well. “Couldn’t hurt.”  
  
They began to walk in the direction Cas had pointed out, noticing the same calm stillness he had. It was definitely quiet, though whether it was too quiet remained to be seen. They only made it about halfway to how far Cas had walked when the fog started to thicken, obscuring their vision almost completely past a handful of trees. They stopped, and Sam tossed his hands up and let them fall back to his sides in defeat.  
  
“Well, then I guess we’re not going to,” Sam griped.  
  
Dean looked behind them, face falling when he could no longer see the clearing they had come from. “I think the more pressing issue right now is hoping we don’t get ourselves lost.”  
  
Dean started to try and carefully turn around to face the exact opposite direction, searching the trees now in front of him for anything familiar. After a few seconds, he spotted a particularly gnarled looking branch on a tree a couple of feet away that he had noted while walking past it.  
  
“Aha!” Dean said triumphantly. He walked over to the branch and patted it fondly, smiling back at Sam and Cas and informing them, “It’s this way.”  
  
Sam hesitated for a moment. “You sure?”  
  
Dean gave Sam a somewhat offended look. “You think I’d let us walk into the woods without paying attention?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued confidently in the direction he had chosen.  
  
Cas followed, telling Sam that he was also certain it was the right direction, so Sam shrugged and followed as well.  
  
After some time, Dean stopped and looked around, expecting to be in the clearing by then but still surrounded by trees and underbrush. He furrowed his brows in confusion.  
  
“You were going in the right direction,” Cas assured him, stopping to stand next to him and look around as well.  
  
“Dean--” Sam said from behind them, pointing just a little ahead and to the side.  
  
Dean looked first at Sam, whose jaw was set tightly, and then to where he was pointing.  
  
“Oh son of a bitch…” Dean muttered as his eyes fell on the same gnarled branch from earlier.  
  
He stormed toward it with eyes wide in disbelief and inspected it, and sure enough it was the very same branch. He looked back to Sam and Cas, and then back at the branch, and then back to Sam and Cas again.  
  
Sam shrugged half-heartedly, arms crossed. “Let’s try it again,” he said.  
  
They followed the same path past the branch, making sure they kept going in as straight a line they could towards where the clearing was supposed to be. Just as before, however, after some time, they ended up right back at the same branch.  
  
“Again,” Cas said, frustration clear in his voice.  
  
They tried once more, feet dragging as they tried to be as cautious as possible, but the only difference was that it seemed to be taking longer to get back to the gnarled branch each time they tried.  
  
“So now what?” Dean complained, “We probably shouldn’t keep trying, hoping we somehow get back, but we can’t exactly stay here either.”  
  
Sam was about to suggest something, when suddenly they heard someone calling out from their right.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
“He-- Hey!” Sam called back in reply instead, nodding at Dean and Cas to follow as he jogged towards the voice. It sounded like a woman, but it was oddly broken up, possibly from the fog.  
  
After a few seconds, the fog thinned and they saw the Smith place loom out of it , only a couple yards away.  
  
They stopped when they got back to the front yard, looking around for whoever called to them. However, no one was there.  
  
“Hello?” Dean called out in confusion.  
  
No one answered.  
  
“Perhaps they already left…” Cas suggested.  
  
“Maybe… but how the hell’d we end up back here already?” Dean replied. “I remember us having spent _a little more time_ walking out to where we were.”  
  
“Well, whatever happened, let’s just be thankful we got back,” Sam commented. He was standing next to them with his hands in his pockets, looking up at the house a little warily. “And hey, the fog let up enough so you can see where you’re going on the way back down,” he added.  
  
“Yeah, Baby’s headlights ain’t exactly Rudolph,” Dean said. He shoved his hands in his pockets as well, and turned toward Sam and Cas. “I don’t about you two but I’m about ready for a drink.”  


* * *

  
Dean took a long drink from his beer glass, finishing it off and calling the bartender for another. “Guess we better start asking people what they know about the place.”  
  
“Considering that’s what we came here for, I’d agree,” Sam replied from the seat next to Dean .  
  
“Who do we contact about accepting the dare?” Cas asked Sam from Dean’s other side, leaning forward to see him better.  
  
“That’d be me,” the bartender answered as he slid Dean his new drink. “You fellas looking to take it up?”  
  
“Yes,” Cas stated, turning to look at the bartender.  
  
The bartender eyed the three of them and then chuckled and introduced himself. “My name’s David. I’ve seen a lot of other people looking a lot like your group come in here, all of them interested in that place too.”  
  
“Yeah, we heard most of them never came back,” Sam said, “from the girl at the museum. We’re still interested.”  
  
“ _None_ of them came back,” David corrected. “This house is the real deal, boys. I just hope for their sakes that the worst that happened was they chickened out.”  
  
“Yeah well we’ve seen our share of haunted houses,” Dean commented.  
  
David laughed. “Yeah that’s what they all said, too, when I tried to warn them.”  
  
“What’d you tell them?” Sam inquired.  
  
“Well if you already know the stories, you should know that thing gets pretty violent now, whatever it is,” David explained.  
  
“We heard,” Sam said, “that realtor got killed, one went missing, and people’ve been getting pushed around there ever since.” He paused for a moment, narrowing his eyes, and then asked, “If it’s so dangerous, why hasn’t anyone torn the place down?”  
  
David looked at him for a moment, before the side of his mouth turned up in a smile. “Well, it brings in visitors, so uh… Other than those realtors, no one’s gotten killed as far as I know. I’m thinking it’s that story and the general spookiness of the place, and the way the mountains can just sometimes be, that’s getting to people.”  
  
“So you don’t think it’s haunted?” Cas asked.  
  
“I’m not sure,” David answered, crossing his arms and resting them on the bar top. “But if there is a ghost haunting the place, I think a lot of the stories’ve been exaggerated after what happened with the realtors. The truth is that people talked about getting shoved and things getting thrown at them before that whole thing, but now everyone claims it only started after. Saying they almost got pushed out a window, or down the basement stairs like the realtor, or instead of a small piece of debris being thrown it’s suddenly a whole table or something more dramatic like a butcher’s knife. I just go with it. It means more people visiting my bar at least.”  
  
Dean looked surprised. “Wait, you said that the ghost was getting pushy _before_ they started renovating the place?” he asked, shaking his head.  
  
“Yeah, but nothing too drastic,” David replied. “Of course, no one stayed in that house as long as the realtors had, but I think people just wanted to find a more exciting story for the death than just a run-of-the-mill murder.”  
  
“So you believe the house is haunted, but you don’t think the ghost was responsible for the death that took place there and Scarpelli’s disappearance?” Sam questioned.  
  
“Pretty much,” David answered, leaning on the counter.  
  
“Have you ever visited the house?” Cas asked with some curiosity.  
  
“Once, and that’s what convinced me that at least some of the stories ain’t just stories,” the bartender told him. “I went there with a friend of mine just shortly before the thing with the realtors, and something grabbed his shoulder pretty hard and jerked him backwards. I thought he was messing around at first, but… that house was just unnaturally cold and he didn’t look like he was joking. Still, it’s a pretty big jump to go from grabbing people to killing them.”  
  
“You never know,” Sam said, taking a sip from his beer.  
  
“If you ask me, it was the woman who killed that man and ran off,” an older lady commented from a seat next to Cas.  
  
Cas turned to look at her, and asked, “Why do you think that?”  
  
“Well why else would she just vanish like that?”  
  
Another bar patron on the other side of the lady leaned forward to join the conversation. “What reason would she have had to kill him?” he asked, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “Something happened to her too. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”  
  
Before they knew it, the conversation about the events at the Smith Place had turned over to those people who’d been listening in. It might have been a useful discussion, but the claims and suspicions only got more and more capricious and unlikely as stories of almost getting beheaded by flying axes and rumors of hidden treasures started being told, and one lively individual claimed the whole thing was in reality an elaborate scheme orchestrated by aliens.

The bartender laughed lowly. “Do you see what I mean?” he said to the three of them.  
  
“Yeah, aliens don’t even exist,” Dean said, shaking his head and taking a drink of his beer. “But we’re still interested in that bet. In fact, we’re confident, ain’t that right guys?” he added, looking over toward Sam and Cas, both of whom nodded and agreed.  
  
“Well, I wish you fellas some luck,” David said. “And I almost forgot--if you guys are serious about claiming the reward, it doesn’t work on an honor system. I’ll need some proof in the form of a photograph of you three at the house every hour that you’re there.”  
  
“Of course,” Sam replied, “We’ll have them.”    
  
“One more thing,” Cas spoke up, raising his hand to stop David as he turned to leave.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
Cas gave a look toward Dean and Sam, who were turned toward him to listen. “Has anyone ever mentioned getting lost in a part of the forest near there, just past a clearing that’s near the house?”  
  
David scratched the back of his neck and looked down as he thought about it.  
  
“Or have they mentioned anything else strange about that area?”  
  
“We were uh, up there earlier,” Sam explained, “to you know, look around the place, and we somehow got ourselves turned around in the woods, as he described.” He thumbed over at Cas. “Like, really turned around actually. We went in a straight line but kept ending up in the same place, until we heard some lady call out to us and found our way back the house.”  
  
Those listening in on their conversation started to murmur their own speculations.  
  
“No, I can’t say I’ve heard that. Then again, everyone here knows better than to go walking around the woods in the fog,” David finally replied. He raised his eyebrow at them. “But mind if I tell your story to others in here looking to hear them?”  
  
“I think they already heard it,” Dean joked. “But sure, go right ahead.”  
  
David nodded at them. They thanked the bartender, paid for their drinks, and left.  


* * *

  
Thankfully the fog hadn’t returned on the trip back up to the house. Dean pulled the Impala up to the clearing in the front and parked it, and everyone got out of the car. They went around to the trunk and opened it, packing some various supplies they’d need, and some extra just in case. Into a few smaller duffels went the usual: a few small bags of rock salt, a few cans of table salt, a shotgun for each of them and some spare salt rounds to go with them, an iron crowbar, a couple of extra zippos and some bottles of lighter fluid . Some change of clothes, some beers and water bottles, and a variety of cheap snacks went into one of the bags as well.  
  
A stiff breeze blew past them, causing Sam to shudder.  
  
“Gettin’ shivers, Sammy?” Dean teased.  
  
Sam ignored him and continued unpacking things from the trunk. Once they had everything, they closed it and headed up the porch stairs, each one creaking loudly as they stepped on it, and stood just outside the front door.  
  
  
  
  
Dean reached for the rusted looking door knob.  
  
“Wait--Dean--” Sam stopped him, grabbing his brother’s arm. “We should go grab the bones first from the back.”  
  
Dean pulled his hand back. “Yeah, good point,” he agreed. He hesitated though , his hand still hovering over the doorknob. He scrunched his face a little. “You think they’re still there? I mean, if a bunch of other hunters really came up here, that info on their location wasn’t that hard to get and it shoulda been the first thing they went for.”  
  
Sam pursed his lips for a moment, thinking. “You’re right. I guess it’s possible they aren’t there anymore, and if this place is still haunted, the spirit could be attached to something else.”  
  
“We should check anyway,” Cas said, already working his way carefully down the stairs.  
  
The three of them returned to the Impala, grabbing some shovels from the trunk, and then headed around to the back of the house. Nestled among a few prickly looking bushes was a single, unmarked headstone that was chipped in a few places at the edges . The dirt around the grave looked as if it had been dug up fairly recently. They exchanged glances and shrugged.  
  
“I guess someone else got here first after all,” Sam commented, leaning on his shovel.  
  
“Doesn’t hurt to check anyway,” Dean replied.  
  
They set their bags down and began digging. The dirt was no longer packed as tightly as it had probably been before it was dug up, so in just a half hour, they reached the point where the others had stopped digging, where the dirt was firm and dense. At first, there didn’t appear to be anything left in the grave.  
  
“If this guy’s body was scattered around the forest in pieces, maybe not all his bones were recovered?” Sam wondered out loud.  
  
“That’s possible,” Cas replied.  
  
They stood around the freshly dug grave for a few moments, and a low rumble of thunder ushered in a steady rainfall. Dean swung his shovel over his shoulder.  
  
“Well we might as well head inside and find whatever the spirit _is_ tied to,” Dean said, starting back towards the front of the house.  
  
Sam moved to follow him, but stopped when he noticed Cas was examining something in the pile of dirt they dug up.  
  
“Cas?” Sam asked.  
  
“I think you were right…” Cas began, pulling a small bone fragment out of the dirt. “They didn’t burn all of the remains. Some pieces are still here.”  
  
Sam and Dean turned back and walked over to Cas.  
  
“Your elf eyes spot anything else in there?” Dean asked him, an appreciative look on his face.  
  
Cas rolled his eyes and stood, gesturing at the pile of dirt. “We should go through this and see if there are more before the rain can wash them out.”  
  
Sighing, Sam and Dean joined him in sifting through the muddying dirt. After what seemed like another half hour passed, they had a small handful of wet bone fragments. The rain had picked up, and it was clear they weren’t going to be able to burn them outside.  
  
“Are we sure that’s all of them?” Sam asked.  
  
“No,” Cas answered. “But let’s hope it is.”  
  
They headed back to the front of the house, planning to find somewhere safe to burn the remains inside. They took their time up the now rainslick stairs. As Dean went to open the door, he glanced at Sam and Cas to make sure they were all good to go, especially considering they’d probably get locked in at some point. Cas had the bones, so Sam carried the two duffels. Satisfied, Dean turned the knob and opened the door.  
  
It opened as creakily, and stale air greeted them as they stepped across the threshold and entered the house. They looked around the living room. The room itself was fairly bare. The floors were wood and looked dusty, and were littered with paper scraps and debris. The wallpaper was stained and peeling in places. Some sections looked intentionally removed near a short hallway that led into an equally dirty-seeming kitchen, and they figured it must have been the realtors. Some larger sections of the drywall were also missing, exposing parts of the framework.  
  
Toward the back of the room was a couch partially covered in a stained dust blanket. On the wall next to the entrance, across from the couch, was an old and broken television set. A few mostly empty and broken down bookshelves were along the wall to the right, and near them was an armchair, its dust blanket in a pile on the floor, with a small end table next to it which had a lamp with a tattered shade on it. Between two of the bookshelves was a fair-sized fireplace, the inside of it blackened with soot and dust.  
  
Cas walked further into the room. Dean and Sam followed, and Sam placed the duffels onto the couch.  
  
“This place is nasty,” Dean commented, his lips turning up in a sneer.  
  
The wind suddenly picked up, and the door slammed shut behind them, causing them to startle and turn around. It was darker now outside the windows, and the rain became heavier.  
  
“I’m not so sure that was just the wind,” Sam said, glancing around the room. “We should probably get started.”  
  
Dean pulled out his EMF reader and turned it on, and it immediately began to make noise, the needle moving straight to the other side of the meter with nary a pause. “Considering how freakin’ cold it is in here, I guess that’s to be expected,” he said to himself.  
  
Cas handed the bones to Sam, walked back over to the door and turned the handle. It opened easily. “Well, we aren’t yet locked in.” The rain outside increased in intensity as he spoke, and thunder rumbled ominously as if in reply.  
  
“Good to know,” Dean replied. “So, shall we?” He swung his arm widely toward the fireplace.  
  
Sam dried the bones on his shirt as made his way to the fireplace. The lamp on the end table flickered as he got closer. Dean scoffed at it, about to make a sarcastic comment, when all the lights in the house flickered and the door pulled itself from Cas’ hand and slammed shut and he was shoved backward.  
  
“Nice going, Dean,” Sam mocked, hurrying forward and carefully but quickly setting the bone fragments down inside the fireplace. Dean had already grabbed a salt can from one of the bags and tossed it to Sam, who caught it easily.  
  
Cas moved back to the door and tried the handle, but it didn’t budge. “Now we’re locked in,” he said, as he quickly walked over toward where Sam and Dean now stood by the fireplace, stopping on the way to grab the lighter fluid they forgot. The doors of the house started slamming and the lights continued flickering.  
  
“Come on, you used to be a hunter. You know this is for your own good and everyone else’s,” Dean called out.  
  
Sam poured some salt over the pile as Cas squirted the lighter fluid onto it, and Dean lit his lighter. Suddenly he felt someone grab his shoulder and jerk him sharply backwards. He stumbled and dropped the lighter, but Sam quickly dropped down and grabbed it, tossing it into the fireplace and onto the bones as he too was yanked to the side. As they lit up, the whole house shook. The front door and windows flew open, sending strong winds and a torrent of rain flying into the house. After a second though, the house stopped shaking and the doors stopped slamming and the lights stopped flickering. The house was still cool, but it had lost its iciness .  
  
“Well that was dramatic,” Sam said, getting to his feet and dusting himself off after having been thrown into the armchair.  
  
Cas and Dean meanwhile were closing up the windows and the door.  
  
“The question now is whether or not it worked,” Cas pointed out.  
  
“Guess we’ll just wait and see,” Dean replied as he shut the last open window.  
  
Waiting involved unpacking some snacks and drinks and sitting on the time-stiffened couch . Over an hour passed and it grew darker as it became the evening. The rain had lightened up for the time being, though the wind seemed to have maintained its strength. As was usually the case with abandoned houses, the power didn’t actually work without the otherworldly energy a ghost provided , so they had a few electric lanterns set up for light. Nothing had happened, so it was decided that burning the bones must have solved the problem. They were in the middle of a heated conversation about pasta when Cas suddenly hushed them.  
  
“What the hell, Cas, you disagree or somethimmph--” Dean was cut off as Cas covered his mouth with his hand.  
  
“I heard something,” he said. “Listen.”  
  
The three of them listened for a moment straining to hear more than the sound of the rain pattering against the roof and windows, and when it started to seem like it might have just been nothing, a quiet creaking sound was heard from the upper floor.  
  
“There’s something up there,” Cas whispered to them.  
  
“It could be an animal or something,” Sam whispered back, “but we should probably check it out.”  
  
They loaded their guns and picked up a lantern and went over to the staircase, holding the lantern out so they could peer up it first. They slowly started to climb the stairs, which creaked and groaned under each step, nullifying any attempts to be quiet. After just the third step there was a thud in the room to the right, as if something had been knocked over or fell. They hurried up the stairs and opened the door, guns ready, but nothing was there.  
  
They looked in confusion around the room. The walls of the room were in the same condition as the living room on the first floor, stained and peeling, though it had no holes. The floor was also cleaner, not covered in any debris. There was a dusty old bed sitting in the middle of the room with an end table next to it. A dresser was on the left side wall, some of its drawers on the floor in front of it, and next to it was an open and empty closet.  
  
Sam cautiously moved toward the bed and slowly lowered the lantern to check underneath it. Dean and Cas readied their guns. Sam bent down and looked. He brought his hand up to his face, a look of disgust crossing over his features.  
  
“What is it?” Cas asked.  
  
“Just a raccoon carcass,” Sam answered standing up and heading back toward them. “But it’s pretty gross, and the smell didn’t hit me until I got close enough.”    
  
“So what made the noise?” Dean pointed out.  
  
As if to answer him, one of the drawers started to move across the floor, making a scraping sound as it did. A second later it flew at them and they scrambled out of its way.  
  
“Shit!” Dean shouted.  
  
“Either there was more than one ghost or we haven’t finished,” Cas said as they left the room.  
  
They went back downstairs and gathered around the supplies.  
  
“It looks like not all the bones were there,” Sam said, digging out some more salt shells.  
  
Dean meanwhile opened one of the bags of rock salt , and was pouring a large circle of salt around the supplies and couch. The house shook as he did. He looked around, cocking an eyebrow.  
  
“I guess this spirit got to be pretty strong. So either of you got ideas on how we’re gonna stop him?” Dean asked.  
  
Cas was inspecting the area around the fireplace to make sure that none of the smaller bone fragments had escaped the fire. “No,” he answered. Not having found anything, he walked over to the duffel bags. “I doubt he’ll be convinced to move on.”  
  
They sat on the couch, considering other options for dealing with the spirit.  
  
“If we knew what he was afraid of before he was killed, maybe we could try scaring him,” Sam suggested, though his voice made it sound as though he didn’t hold much hope for that plan.  
  
“Yeah, and it’s not like we have someone like Missouri who can just exorcise it,” Dean added.  
  
A series of soft thuds drew their attention to the fireplace. The light from their lantern granted enough visibility to see something circular fall, landing with a final thud at the bottom. It rocked just a little before coming to a rest.  
  
They looked at each other, and back to the object.  
  
“I looked last time,” Sam said, putting his hands up. “It’s someone else’s turn.”  
  
Cas stood, not waiting for them to make a decision, and walked over to the fireplace. He squatted down and reached inside, pulling out the object. “It’s a severed human head,” he told them, now turning it over in his hands.  
  
“Oh,” Dean said, his brows drawing together .  
  
More things were heard tumbling through the chimney, and soon they landed in a small pile at the bottom.  
  
“I would take it that’s the rest of the body,” Sam commented.  
  
Cas looked at the pile and took hold of one of the limbs--an arm, inspecting it. “Yes,” he answered. He held the arm towards them, adding, “Smith may have sent us a message”.  
  
Dean and Sam walked over to him to take a look at the arm, and above the elbow was an anti-possession tattoo.  
  
“Well, I guess we know what happened to at least some of those people who came up here,” Sam said.  
  
“Yeah, but making ‘em fall from the chimney is kinda tacky don’t you think?” Dean added.  
  
Before they could comment further, they heard the faucet running in the kitchen. They grabbed a lantern and followed the short hallway into the kitchen. The blue light washed out any color, making everything appear gray. Quickly, they spotted the sink, where a dark liquid was spewing out from a rusted-looking faucet. They carefully moved toward it, trying to get a better view, when it suddenly stopped. Once they reached the sink, they glanced inside and saw some of the substance still there.  
  
“Is that--?” Dean started to ask.  
  
“Ectoplasm,” Sam answered with a frown.  
  
Cas was quiet for a moment, thinking.  
  
“It’s possible his spirit has become attached to the house,” he finally said.  
  
“So we burn the whole thing?” Dean half-suggested.  
  
“It’s still raining pretty hard out there, so I don’t think that’s possible,” Sam said.  
  
“And we’d be trapped inside as well,” Cas pointed out, “So I don’t recommend that as our course of action.”  
  
A flash of lightning illuminated the yard outside the window, and at the edge of the woods they saw the figure of a woman standing. With the next flash however, she was gone.  
  
“You both saw that, right?” Dean asked.  
  
“A woman standing out by the woods, watching us?” Cas asked.  
  
They leaned over the counters crusted with dirt and dust and tried their best to peer out the window into the darkness, but as far as they could see nothing was there.  
  
“Maybe it’s whoever called us when we were lost earlier,” Sam offered.  
  
“Another ghost--”  
  
Dean was interrupted as a knife embedded itself in the wall to his left, inches from his head.  
  
“Shit!” Dean yelped.  
  
Cas, who had been standing next to Dean on the right, reflexively pulled him closer to himself and away from the knife. “Dean, are you alright?” he asked with worry, turning Dean to face him to check for any injuries .  
  
Sam also moved closer toward the middle to be more in front of the window and less in front of the wall.  
  
“I vote we get out of the room full of sharp objects,” Sam suggested.  
  
Cas and Dean agreed, and the three of them left the kitchen back through the hallway leading to the living room. They were about to enter it when the light from the lantern showed a trail of glistening deep red either coming up to or going away from the closed doorway to their left.  
  
They were debating whether or not to investigate when they heard footsteps running up a staircase that must have been on the door’s other side. Immediately they moved back and aimed their guns at the door. The running stopped, and the door slowly began to open. Then, suddenly, it slammed fully open, crashing loudly against the edge of the wall next to it. They waited, expecting something to step forward, but nothing did. They glanced at each other, and hesitantly took a step toward the door. As they moved closer, the light showed more of what turned out to be a staircase leading into the basement.  
  
Sam, who was holding the lantern, moved to stand at the top of the stairs, holding it in front of him as he did. The light illuminated more ectoplasm oozing from the jagged cracks that spread across the wall. He took half a step down, and the moment he did, the door swung shut on him.  
  
“Sam!” Dean shouted, as he heard his brother yell in surprise and stumble down a few steps.  
  
“Guys I’m ok,” Sam answered. The doorknob jiggled as he tried it. “The door’s locked though,” he added with a sigh.  
  
“We’ll get you out of there, Sam. Don’t worry,” Cas assured him.  
  
At that moment, there was a knock at the front door.  
  
“Hello?” Dean called out, narrowing his eyes at the door .  
  
“Dean, what’s going on out there?” Sam asked, confused.  
  
“There’s someone at the front door,” Cas informed him. “Dean and I will check it out.”  
  
As they moved toward the door, they heard the knocking again, this time a little faster.  
  
“Yeah, we’re comin’,” Dean said.  
  
The lamp in the corner of the room flickered on, lighting up the room. They got to the door, and Cas tried to open it, but it wouldn’t open. The knocking continued.  
  
“It’s locked,” Dean told whoever it was, “We can’t open it.”  
  
The knocking continued, this time sounding more frantic.  
  
Cas pulled at the door again with no luck. “I’m sorry, but we can’t open the door,” he tried.  
  
The knocking turned into pounding, which shook the door and the walls around it.  
  
“It’s locked! We can’t open it!” Dean shouted. He went to look out the window next to the door, but it was too dark to see who was there with the light on. He cupped his hands around his eyes, hoping to block out some of the light, when there was a flash of lightning and a loud clap of thunder and a woman with no eyes suddenly pressed her face up against the glass.  
  
“Holy shit!” Dean cried out, falling backwards after having been startled.  
  
Cas moved next to Dean, crouching next to him, and looked at the woman in the window. “Dean, I think that’s the realtor who went missing.”  
  
“The fuck?”  
  
She moved away from the window, back towards the door.  
  
“Would we even want to let her in?” Dean gasped out, leaning back slightly into Cas while he caught his breath.  
  
Cas helped Dean to his feet. “If she’s the same spirit who guided us back to the house earlier, then she may be trying to help us,” he said.  
  
“I mean we did have the intern’s ghost save us that other time we were locked in a haunted house, but it was a standard ghost that had a form the intern’s could just tackle. How’s this realtor lady gonna do anything when she’s up against an entire house she can’t even get into?” Dean stressed.  
  
“Maybe she’s not alone,” Cas answered. He went over toward the bags, pulling out a second container of salt. He turned to hand it to Dean, looking him directly in the eyes . “First, we need to try and weaken the house by spreading salt around it.”  


* * *

  
Meanwhile, Sam had decided to check out the basement to see if there was anything that looked like it could help him break the door down. The old wooden stairs had creaked loudly enough to make him worry they could collapse, but he made it down without trouble . Thankfully, the trail of blood had vanished as soon as the door closed, so he didn’t have to worry about slipping on it.  
  
At first glance the basement seemed bare. The floor and walls were both made of flat and gray stone, and the room seemed mostly empty except for an old washer and dryer. But when he walked over to look at the section behind the staircase, there was a large pile of something in the middle of the floor. He stepped closer, holding the lantern out in front of him. The light from it illuminated what seemed to be the rest of the bodies. They were also in pieces, but something was wrong. As Sam carefully stepped closer to investigate, he sucked in a startled breath when he saw that what was wrong, was that they were moving. Not very obviously, but each limb was twitching, or a finger on a hand was lightly tapping, or a toe was slowly curling and uncurling. The most unsettling were the faces. The ones who had eyes, their eyes reflected the light from the lantern eerily, and the jaws were all open, but moving, as if trying to speak.  
  
“What the fuck…” Sam whispered, eyes widened .  
  
He was about to turn and leave that particular area when a glint caught his eye. The light had reflected off of the handle of something, a shovel or an axe maybe, but it just happened to be Sam’s luck that it was resting against the other side of the pile of body parts. He threw his hand up and let it fall back to his side in uncomfortable exasperation.  
  
“Really…?” he sighed.  
  
He hesitantly inched closer to the pile, wincing as he reached across it to grab the handle of the thing. He grabbed it, but froze as quiet, hoarse voices now came from the pile of dismembered bodies.  
  
“Help… us…”  
  
Sam thinned his lips and gulped, pulling at the tool, but it was stuck on something. He gingerly sidestepped the pile to see what it was stuck on, and rolled his eyes when he saw one of the hands wrapped tightly around what turned out to be a shovel. He lowered himself to one knee and began working to pry the cold, not-as-dead-as-they-should-be fingers off it, but they were stuck tightly. Suddenly, another hand reached out and grasped Sam’s arm. He shouted and tried to shake it off, but it too seemed to have an unusually strong grip for a severed arm. Another hand grabbed his leg, this one partly decomposed already, and seemed to be trying to pull him closer to it.  
  
“Really?!” Sam yelled as he tried to shake that one off as well.  
  
He saw more arms reaching for him from the pile, but just as quickly as they had attacked, they all stopped. The arms fell from his own arm and leg, and the shovel fell clattering to the ground next to him. He snatched it up and scrambled to his feet, making a run for the stairs.  
  
The whole basement briefly lit up as he ran, and once he was at the top of the stairs he lifted the shovel up high, preparing to swing it down to break the door down. It opened, however, and Sam stopped just before hitting a very surprised Dean in the face.  
  
“Whoa, watch it!” Dean shouted, jumping backwards from the door.  
  
“Dean,” Sam addressed him almost breathlessly, and confused.  
  
Cas appeared next to Dean, another lantern in his hand. “We’ve taken care of Smith’s ghost.”

Sam walked back into the short hallway, tossing a wide-eyed glance back down the stairs before looking back to Dean and Cas. “What? How?”  
  
“We realized the ghost of the realtor chick was probably trying to help us, so we summoned the spirits of all the other hunters who bought it here and sorta had them team up on the house,” Dean explained.  
  
“Sam, are you alright?” Cas asked him.  
  
Sam looked between the two of them for a moment before shaking his head and answering. “Yeah, no-- I’m fine. There’s just, the uh, their bodies, they’re all in the basement,” he said. “So it’s taken care of?”  
  
“Yep,” Dean answered. “Now all we have to do is wait until morning to go collect our winnings.”  
  
The three of them went back into the living room, sitting on the couch in the expanded salt circle, still there for good measure. Sam told them more about the bodies in the basement, and they agreed to set up a proper hunter’s funeral for them in the morning.  
  
“So they were really grabbing onto you?” Dean asked, making a face and making grabby hands in Sam’s direction.  
  
“Yes, and stop that,” Sam said, unamused.  
  
“That’s unusual for a ghost to control corpses in such a manner,” Cas noted.  
  
“Well, this whole case has been pretty unusual I’d say,” Dean replied.  
  
“Yeah, like what was up with that unusual part of the woods Cas dragged us into, that we nearly got lost looking around, and then what was Smith writing about being so afraid of?” Sam added.  
  
Dean rummaged around inside one of their bags and pulled out three beers, passing Sam and Cas one. “Fuck if I know.”.  
  
“It’s a shame we don’t have anything to go on besides the ramblings in his journal and the strange patch of forest,” Cas said, mild disappointment in his voice.  
  
“I’m just glad to call this case with the ghost done,” Sam replied.  
  
Suddenly Dean shot up from his seat, startling Sam and Cas.  
  
“What is it?” they asked, worried.  
  
Dean leaned forward, putting his face in his hands. “We forgot to take the photos for the first few hours we were here for the reward money,” he groaned.  
  
Cas and Sam leaned back, relieved.  
  
“Then let’s start taking them now,” Cas suggested, shrugging.  
  
“It’s not like it’s morning yet,” Sam added.  
  
Dean sat back up. “Good point,” he said. He pulled out his phone and held it out to get a picture of the three of them on the couch.  
  
“I hope the bartender doesn’t mind that we made it easier for people to complete his challenge,” Cas said.  
  
Sam and Dean just shrugged, and the three of them continued their conversation where they had left off earlier.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the artist, [impalartsociopath ](http://impalartsociopath.tumblr.com/) for his amazing artwork for the fic, and for generally being very patient with me! Go check out his fics [here ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BehindTheCellarDoor/pseuds/BehindTheCellarDoor) and his other fantastic artwork [here ](http://impalartsociopath.tumblr.com/)!  
> Thank you also to [hit_the_books](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hit_the_books/pseuds/hit_the_books) for beta reading my fic so thoroughly! It's definitely much better for it!  
> (And on that note, thank you to [majesticduxk](http://archiveofourown.org/users/majesticduxk/pseuds/majesticduxk) for helping me figure out a problem I had while writing this!) 
> 
> Sorry about the ending, by the way. I had been watching videos and reading stories about weird and unexplained events and such, and it sorta kinda influenced the story. I almost considered adding answers, but then I just liked the idea of some unexplained stuff being in there. 
> 
> Edit: I changed the dimensions of the art pieces so they fit better and aren't slightly cropped on the side!


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